On Sun, 2007-07-22 at 12:11 +1000, jedd wrote: > Or more specifically, how do we feel about Flex? It's not without flaws, but for the most part it makes things a buttload easier. At my company we've gone through the process of developing a web-client in Actionscript 2, followed by re-writes in Actionscript 3. Both of which were comprised of custom components, skinned using our own home-baked methods. We've now made the move towards using the Flex framework, given that it gives us fewer headaches than building everything from scratch. Here's a couple of things I like about it: * Pre-built components for everything you'd need for a low-medium complexity prototype * Drag & drop managers * Skinning with CSS (albeit *very* basic) * Bridge to the desktop (Flex + Apollo framework) * Flash player cache (as of Flex 3), means that you only need to download the framework once (this solves the problem everyone has with Flex skyrocketing their deployed file sizes) * Forms don't suck arse (tabbing, labels, validation work as expected) * Full-screen, hardware accelerated video * The developer community is booming * There's demand (and money) You might find it useful to load up the Flex 2 Language Reference [1]...anything prefixed with mx.* comes from the Flex framework. Another point to mention is that Flex has been open-sourced under the MPL licence [2]. You still have to deal with the fact that the Flash Player is closed source, a little buggy in places, and slightly behind on Linux...but for the most part it's great. I use Linux to write my Flex applications (just grab the Flex SDK which includes the mxmlc compiler), and you're away. There's no need for Flex Builder / Flash CS3. Let me know if you need more info. Cheers, -- Nathan de Vries
Attachment:
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature